Brief:

• Dunkin’ Donuts, the coffee and bakery chain with 12,400 restaurants worldwide, started a promotion for Valentine’s Day that includes a contest on Facebook’s Instagram app and special emojis on the Dunkin’ Donuts app, per a statement. Customers are asked to post pictures showing how their friendship or relationship with someone “runs on Dunkin’” and tag them with #DDLOVECONTEST on Instagram.

• The chain created emojis inspired by Valentine's Day that can be used on the Dunkin' Donuts Emoji keyboard in its mobile app and will have a live stream on Facebook Live with social influencers offering a demonstration on how to use heart-shaped donuts in gifts. 

• Dunkin’ Donuts partnered with dating app Tinder for the first time to introduce special Valentine’s Day polls, messages and GIF keyboard integration with GIPHY in Tinder messenger. On Snapchat, Dunkin' Donuts will have a national animated geofilter for February 13 and a "Donut Pop" game running through February.

Insight:

Dunkin’ Donuts will be hard to avoid on mobile in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day as the chain makes a big promotional push on a variety of popular apps. Now that Super Bowl is over, marketers are looking toward the next big opportunity to reach customers and Valentine's Day tops the list for many. This year, U.S. consumers are expected to spend an average of $143.56 on Valentine's Day, up from $136.57 last year, according to the National Retail Federation. 

The bakery chain has consistently been an early adopter of mobile content like emojis, GIFs and more. It has also been quick to pounce on opportunities to sign up more people for its DD Perks mobile app and rewards program. After the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, Dunkin’ Donuts offered a free medium-sized coffee at participating Dunkin’ Donuts locations throughout southern New Jersey, the greater Philadelphia area and Delaware on Monday. That followed a 52-cent coffee offer to Philadelphia’s DD Perks members in the week leading up the Super Bowl.

Not to be outdone on Valentine's Day, Starbucks on Feb. 7 through Feb. 14 is offering Molten Chocolate beverages, heart-shaped cookies, cake pops and merchandise at its stores. The coffee chain also created a playlist of love songs streamed from Spotify. Customers can “vote up” their favorites through the Starbucks mobile app, and the company will share the top love songs on February 10. Starbucks also created the first Valentine’s Day episode of its “1st & Main” animated series that streams on YouTube.